The Reaction
by Seiryu Shinigami
Summary: This is reposted by um...not really popular demand, just general demand...chapters 1-10 posted save chapter 8...couldn't find a copy...review pleez...


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing…and I wouldn't claim responsibility for fanfiction.net if someone paid me a million dollars…no kidding people…so anyway…no, this isn't reposted because people asked me to, only because I'm studying the people who surf this site. This is going to be the only work I leave on this site…all of my other stuff is being moved somewhere else. I challenge my flaming friend to get it removed; I'll just repost it again. Get my account destroyed as quickly as possible…I can't find the button…

***

Duo Maxwell yawned as he stared at his computer screen. The dull monotone colors reflected eerily in his cobalt blue eyes. A single e-mail was staring back at him. This was definitely new; he usually got a lot of e-mail from various people. Duo sipped some coke from a glass that was next to the laptop as he read the name. It was from Quatre Winner, and it was titled "found strange website." Duo blinked. Quatre never surfed the web. He opened the e-mail to find a single link that read "fanfiction.net". "Hey Heero, come see this."

From across the hall there was a very reluctant grunt and the sounds of covers being pulled. Heero Yuy had been asleep; didn't Duo know what time it was? Heero glanced over at the glowing digital clock by his dresser. It read 2:54 AM. "Duo! It had better be extremely important!"

Duo sipped the coke again and grinned, elated at having woken his friend up so suddenly. "Yeah, you ever heard of a site called fanfiction.net?"

"No, but I know Quatre has," Heero rolled over, wondering whether he would have to get up or not.

"Yeah, I know that, he sent the e-mail. But come on, get over here, you have to see this site." Duo clicked on the anime section and was quite baffled to find a little blue link that read "Gundam Wing". "Hey Heero, what's 'Gundam Wing'? Is that like a codename for your Wing Gundam backwards or something?"

Heero absentmindedly wondered whether a pillow would drown out the sound of the chatter or not. "How should I know, you tell me in the morning all right?"

"Fine, be that way," Duo called as he clicked on the link. There was well over seven hundred pages of what Duo easily figured out were stories, and the creepy thing was that every single one of those stories was about…well…them. "Whoa…"

Duo spent the next four hours just browsing through and reading the stories. "Hey Heero! You must see this, it's incredible!"

"Duo Maxwell," Heero jumped out of bed in a single leap and crossed the hall. "There had better be an extreme emergency-"

"Just read some of this stuff," Duo defended himself as Heero's dark blue eyes scanned the screen.

The boys read some of the stories in silence. Very quickly Heero's sleepy face and annoyance transformed into intense concentration. "Wha-what is this? Who got this much information on us?!"

"No idea, buddy, isn't it weird? Hey, what does the word 'yaoi' mean?"

"I don't know, click on it," Heero pulled up a chair and pushed Duo out of the way. "This is unbelievable, I've never seen anyone with this much knowledge of the pilots before-"

Duo interrupted his friend. "Hold on, click out of this story, it's just about a lemon. Who would write a story about a citrus fruit?"

"I think 'lemon' is some sort of code," Heero eyed the computer with an experienced and critical look. "We should read through them all."

"But there are seven hundred pages-"

"Duo. Go get the others up."

"But-"

"Do it, I'll read a few of these. Now, Duo."

"Fine," Duo huffed and walked out of the room. Heero was vaguely aware of the sounds of three more very annoyed pilots a few minutes later. The blue-eyed teen glanced through the story in front of him. It was accurate in every possible way, until Heero got to one part he didn't understand. As he read through this part he was soon utterly shocked by the rather explicit and graphic content of it. Duo waltzed back into the room and Heero jumped, clicking the window closed. Duo was clutching his braid defensively. "Damn, next time you get to wake Wufei up. So, did you read your lemon? What was it about?"

"Nothing," Heero said hurriedly. "It was just nonsense, that's all."

"Heero, buddy, you okay? You look really weirded out by something."

"Fine. Really. We've got to find who wrote all this."

"Lemme guess, and then hunt them down?"

Heero clicked an internet window and reopened the site. "Only possibly."

"Hmmm," Duo shrugged. "So everyone else is up, but I think they're gonna be kind of mad at'cha. After all, I only woke them up in your name. Are we really talking that big a security risk here?"

"Enormous," Heero clicked on another story, curious to what the phrase "complete fluff" meant. "There's just no possible way-"

"That this could be important?" Chang Wufei wandered in, yawning as he did. He was wearing the usual white outfit as pajamas and looking exceptionally grumpy.

"Well," Heero scanned some words on the screen. "If you call the fact that someone seems to think you like wearing pink frilly skirts important."

"WHAT?!!" the house shook as Wufei shoved Heero out of the chair, glaring at the computer screen like it was pointing a gun at him. His mouth dropped open. He gaped in such incredulous disbelief that Heero forgot to slug him back for pushing him off the chair, the Chinese boy's face was priceless. 

From out of no where Duo appeared with a camera, and quick as lightning he snapped a photo. "Ha ha! Wufei's face will be preserved forever. Man, this is the greatest blackmail yet, you'll hafta pay me millions to get this picture back!"

"Maxwell!" Wufei's attention instantly focused on jumping out of the chair and chasing Duo around the room for the camera. Heero climbed back into the chair as the hunter and hunted took their dispute out into the hall. Heero got out a pad and pencil from the desk drawer. He was looking at the story that described Wufei as a cross dresser. His eyes fell to the author's name. He wrote it down on the paper. 

Trowa Barton wandered in with a huge yawn. "Is there any reason why Wufei is screaming and chasing Duo around the house?"

"You'd better have a look at this," Heero pointed on screen. He let Trowa sit down and click through a few stories. 

"This is…interesting…a joke of Duo's?"

"No, it's for real."

"Really…" Trowa proceeded to skim over story after story, only stopping to make comments like "that's accurate" or "this is disgusting" or "heh, hilarious". Eventually he turned to Heero. "There must have been a security leak. It's no problem, we just have to hack into the site and delete it. But some of these stories are very funny, I like this one that makes fun of Relena."

"Trowa…"

"Don't look at me like I'm some sort of traitor, read it for yourself."

Duo came sneaking back into the room. He wasn't empty handed either; he had several more cans of coke and an enormous bowl of popcorn. He was laughing to himself as he ate. 

"How'd you manage to get something to eat with Wufei out for your blood?"

"Let's just say," Duo grinned. "That he'll be busy for a while."

"You locked him in the basement again?"

"Exactly. Works every single time, you think he'd learn but nope. So anyway, what's the deal with this thing? Are we gonna do something about it or what?"

Trowa blinked at the screen. "Well there's obviously some sort of code here. We should check just to make sure that we're not dealing with anything serious. For example, lets figure out what "slash" means, pairings, lemons, someone mentions a lime here-"

Heero opened his mouth but no words came out. "Umm…you might want to leave the citrus fruit alone."

"Why? What if it's dangerous?"

"Harmless," Heero seemed like he was trying to convince himself. "Trust me, absolutely harmless."

"Okay," Trowa arched an eyebrow. "Well how about all of these other things? AU, OCC, bashing, angst, there are a million different ratings-"

"Yeah yeah," Duo ate some more popcorn. "Let's make it really interesting. First one to guess the entire plot line from the first chapter of a story gets dibs on the TV for a week. We can plot out on a time chart."

"I think there are warnings on the reviews for those types of stories," Heero reached for some popcorn, "they're called 'Mary-sues'."

"Well there are a lot of those," Duo nodded, "so I'd say we have a pretty fair bet. You boys in?"

"Sure."

"Why not?"

"Good," Duo opened another can of coke. "Here's a promising one. Click on it."

Just as the boys started the terms of their wager Quatre Winner walked in the room, very sleepy. "Morning everyone," he yawned. "Is there any reason Wufei's in the basement at this hour?"

"Forgot to polish his katana," Duo gave a reason very shortly. "Hey Quat, you've been holding out on us. When did this site come into being?"

"Oh. Um, I don't know," Quatre looked at the screen. "Whoa, you're reading one of my stories."

There was dead silence. "Your stories?"

"Yeah, I publish here. I'm Winner04."

More silence. Eventually Heero spoke up. "I bet by chapter three he kills off Trowa."

"You're on," Trowa slammed a can of coke down on the desktop. 

Quatre smiled sheepishly. "It's a wonder none of you want to hunt these people down. Some of the material here is…controversial…"

"We were thinking about it actually."

"Okay. But there are well over two hundred thousand authors you'd have to get. That's a lot of people to track down."

"Oh," Heero bit into some more popcorn. 

And so the pilots started reading through the contents of fanfiction.net, unaware of what exactly they were getting into, much less where exactly where they'd be at the end…

To be continued…

******

***

Duo Maxwell knew that some moments in life just had to be captured on film, and that was why he was always prepared now a days. He couldn't think of a better portrait than that of the contrasting faces of Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton. Trowa was wearing a very uncharacteristic frown of defeat, and utter incredulous disbelief. It went very well with Heero's usual look of extreme smugness that he wore whenever he was winning at something. Duo let the flash of the camera speak for itself. "Oh yeah. This one is definitely going in the album next to Wufei's."

"I can't believe it," Trowa shrugged his shoulders. 

"I know what you mean," Heero grinned. "We don't own a photo album."

Trowa glared daggers at the perfect soldier, who decided to surrender the chair in front of the laptop and go get some breakfast. 

Quatre was sitting in the corner looking guilty. For the fifth time that morning he tried to form words of apology to Trowa. "I am so sorry…you weren't ever supposed to see it. I was trying to use you as the symbolism for an empty part of life. It was supposed to be a tragic metaphor leaving people enlightened and-"

"I don't care. You killed me off in the first chapter of your story."

"But lots of people do it, and I got such good reviews-"

"It doesn't matter. You made me lose a bet. I never lose bets, especially not to Heero."

Quatre shrugged. "But…I got good reviews…"

Trowa got up. "I think I'm going to go find Wufei now," he left the room.

Heero returned with a few pieces of sliced toast. The clock read 7 AM and the boys had spent the entire night looking around the now infamous internet site called fanfiction.net. They were still very confused and had long since determined that it needed a lot more looking into before anyone could dismiss it. After all, none of the pilots had ever seen a place with so much in depth information on them. It was really quite disturbing, and so were some of the authors.

Duo snatched a piece of toast from Heero and the chair in front of the little computer as he talked. "Ya know, most of the authors in this thing openly admit their own insanity on their bios. Does that scare anyone as much as it scares me?"

"Like I said before," Heero pulled up a chair behind Duo. "It doesn't surprise me. There's obviously some sort of code going on here. I think we should still consider this site as a possible threat, even though it seems harmless enough."

"Harmless isn't the word," Quatre was still sitting on a couch behind them. He seemed very unhappy indeed. "Why did I ever send that e-mail? I thought you guys would like my work…"

"Well, how many other people did you kill off?"

"That's besides the point, I was just in a bad mood. I thought it would be interesting to share."

"Yeah, it's very interesting," Duo smirked as he reached for a pad of paper and pencil on the desktop. On the paper was a long list of pen names that Heero had called "suspicious". Duo really had no idea whether his friend wanted to investigate them or was just interested in reading their work. "Okay, if we're gonna make a real investigation here we have to do it right. There are a lot of different subjects, ratings, and obviously a code for describing stories. If it really means something we should see a pattern, right?"

"Right," Heero answered as he refreshed the page for updates. "You have one?"

"Yup," Duo nodded, "two actually, and they're both in the pen names. Now I don't mean to hog the spotlight but there are a million people with the word 'Shinigami' in their names. That can only mean one thing."

"Which is?"

"They obviously like me the best."

Heero snorted. "Don't flatter yourself."

"No really, look at all these names. Just wait 'til you hear my other point."

"I'm afraid I'm still listening."

"Most of these people have their own first names, but use our last names as their last names. Lianne Yuy, Kitty Maxwell, Tammi Kushrenada…and the list goes on. It's mostly female first names too. Don't you think that's implying something?"

Heero blinked. Inwardly he sighed, at least they weren't boys' first names. "Well…ummm…"

"This site is getting less and less harmless by the minute. Here's the deal, let's just pick a word and figure out what it means. We can go systematically until we have it all figured out. Sound peachy?"

"Extremely," Heero chewed on some toast.

"Okay, since I want to reek a little havoc and already have an idea of what this is anyway, let's explore the humor section."

Heero didn't respond, he just rolled his eyes and turned to Quatre. "Do you have anything published there?"

"No, I try to keep my fiction serious and to the point."

"Good. Duo, you can explore away."

Duo brought up the page. He put the arrow over the first story that popped up. "Care to wager a week's worth of TV on the plot line of this? Let's guess it by the title."

The title of the story read "Quatre's Little Secret". Duo grinned as the blond boy sitting behind him perked up and frowned. "Oh. I've read a few of those. They're all sick and pointless."

"Very well then," Duo grinned. "You want to take a stab at it, buddy?"

Heero stared at the title for a minute. "Quatre's a girl, he's a cross dresser, he has a crush on Trowa, the end."

Duo blinked and pressed the blue link of the story. In less than five hundred words Heero was absolutely correct. Quatre's face grew a distinct shade of magenta. "Damn, been hiding something from us, Quat?"

Quatre sighed. "Of course not. There's a lot of that sort of stuff. I guess some of these people just don't like us and decide to publish lies."

"Man, I was kidding. You take things so incredibly seriously."

"You would too if you were being judged. Besides, Wufei has a lot more of those types of stories about him anyway."

Duo grinned. "Sure thing, Quatre."

As if on queue a mysterious crashing sound boomed from below the three boys. Trowa came sauntering back into the room with a bowl of cereal in one hand and a key in the other. He pocketed the key and turned to Duo. "I have no idea how Wufei could have gotten out of the basement. You can bet on it if you want."

The crashing sounds bounced up the stairway and down the hall. Duo scrolled down the web page and scanned for something appropriate for the Chinese boy's angry arrival. He found the perfect thing just as Wufei shook the house and stormed into the room. "Wufei! So nice of you to join us. Would you like to read about you going out with Sally or Threize?"

The tiny house resonated with five different voices, some yelling bloody murder, and some laughing their heads off…

Duo regained control of his voice. "Okay, so we have the humor section figured out. But I really think it's time we turn our attention to this citrus fruit thing…"

To be continued…

******

Duo Maxwell took a deep breath, placing his hands on the keyboard dramatically. He decided to make sure of one little thing before he went through with this. "Okay, we're all varying degrees of mentally sane here so this shouldn't be that hard. Heero says that this citrus fruit thing is a dangerous threat, one that will most likely turn us against each other. But, no matter what happens…everyone had better be alive at the end of it, all right? Heero?"

"I guess so."

"Trowa?"

"I don't see why not."

"Cool, Quatre?"

"Of course, do I need to remind you that I know exactly what the citrus thing is?"

"No, you don't. Wufei?"

Chang Wufei laughed. "No promises Maxwell. We'll just see what happens…"

Duo blinked. "Oh come on, Wu-man, this is the internet, how bad can it possibly be?"

Quatre coughed into his breakfast, a bowl of Frosted Flakes. "You'll all see in a second."

"Heh…really…" Duo stared at the screen for a second. He was looking at a story whose summary was advertising a 'major lemon'. He still wasn't exactly sure about what it was, but there was only one way to find out, right? "Here goes the fun part," Duo clicked the blue link.

The words on the screen reflected into five pairs of eyes that grew wider, and wider…and wider. Duo's mouth fell open, and despite his supposed pre-knowledge of this type of thing Quatre's spoon fell into his bowl. After a minute of staring at the words Heero left the room. He went across the hall into his bedroom for only a minute, and came back to see everyone still frozen, eyes glued to the screen like someone had chemically bonded them there. Duo's hand was clutching the mouse so Heero saw one solution to the content of the story. He cocked the gun he always kept under his pillow, (just in case of course) and blew the laptop into a million different atomic particles. The reaction was very mixed.

"Heero! That's the fifth laptop this month!"

"Wait, I couldn't get the name of the author, what else am I supposed to hunt that baka down by?"

"I wasn't done reading that you know. It seemed like an interesting metaphor if you read over the lemon."

"How can you read over something like that? I can't believe that person thought Heero and I-"

"I destroyed it because I'll never be able to look at the screen the same way again. Even Relena and I haven't done some of that stuff-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You and Relena did-"

"Nothing. Forget I ever said it. So who are we hunting down?"

"Anyone who would dare to assume the injustice of that about us. I say we get them all, systematically of course."

Heero nodded. "Sounds good, race you to the car-"

Duo got up and slammed the door shut. "Wait, we can't just start hunting people down!"

Heero blinked at him. "This site is most clearly a threat. Wufei and I certainly can, that was so disgusting that someone has to pay-"

Quatre leapt up, spilling the cereal all over the room. "Come on guys, just because certain people have certain opinions about us doesn't mean that-"

Heero pulled some Frosted Flakes out of his hair. "It means what it's meant to mean! And that is to drive us stark raving insane!"

Wufei tried to push past Duo to get at the door. "Maxwell, I am mentally scarred for the rest of my life now! Somebody is gonna pay for that, now it's either gonna be some author far away, or you!"

"No way Wufei, we can't get mad at someone just because that seems yucky to us!"

"I'll cut off your braid."

"I'll die your pajamas pink."

"I'll paint Deathsycthe pink."

"I'll dip your katana in glue."

"Omae o korusu! I'll kill both of you if you don't stop fighting. And if anyone ever goes near my clothes or my gundam with pink paint I'll-"

Quatre got up on the top of the couch and screamed at the top of his lungs. "EVERYBODY STOP IT!"

Everyone did.

"Wow, that felt kind of good," Quatre grinned sheepishly. "Anyway…I think you guys missed a concept here. It's called fanFICTION.net. As in fictional stories. F-i-c-t-i-o-n…it's not that hard to get. Who cares whether these people think that I like Trowa, or that Duo likes Heero, or Heero likes Threize, or Wufei likes Threize, or Duo, or Trowa. Sometimes the pairings get really insane…Heero and I, Wufei and I, Zechs and Heero, Zechs and Duo, Wufei and Trowa. There are even girl pairings, Relena and Dorothy, Relena and Noin-"

"Quatre. Two words my friend: Shut. Up. You are this close to putting us in a mental hospital. The mental pictures you're scarring us with-"

"You're all big boys. You'll get over it. The point is, who cares? It's just stories people make up. You can't go hunting anyone down."

There was a long silence. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I'm very sure."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Wufei, you're being a weak baby, suck it up. There's nothing wrong with it. Who knows, someone in this room might agree with their opinions."

There was a very long silence, broken by Heero cocking the gun again. "I'm very sorry Quatre, but you leave me no choice-"

Trowa knocked on the door. The tense moment was instantly deflated; no one had noticed that the silent boy had even left the room. He opened the door with one hand, hiding something behind his back with the other. "I think this situation calls for some refreshments."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we need a new computer, right? So we'll have to go out. It's a very hot day outside so lets all have something to drink before hand," Trowa pulled a big pitcher from behind his back. "Anyone want some lemonade?"

***

***

"Okay," Duo Maxwell folded his arms in an excellent parody of having an idea what he was doing. "Are we gonna pick a subject out of a hat here or what?"

"I don't care what you pick," Heero Yuy took a drink from a glass Quatre had given to him. He almost spat the sugary sweet liquid out. "Just no more lemons."

Quatre took a sip of some lemonade of his own. "I still think you all over reacted regarding that. Besides, we're not going to be reading anything until Trowa comes back with another computer."

Trowa Barton had volunteered to go get another computer for the boys to use in their bold and daring exploration of fanfiction.net. The last laptop, fifth to suffer a tragic end at the hands of its owner, had been destroyed down to melted plastic. So the gundam pilots had to wait. 

Duo grinned. "Cool! I've got the perfect subject in mind then!"

"And what's that?" Chang Wufei seemed very tired of the fanfic game that his friends were having a ball with. 

"Death, doom, and destruction! I'm in a lighter mood, so I think we should explore angst."

"You mean the subject?"

"Yup, not a good choice Q-man?"

Quatre shrugged. "Some of those stories are very depressing. For some reason people love to kill us off."

"Then all the power to them," Duo just found this hiliarious for some reason. "Personally, in some cases I'd put a safe bet on us really deserving it."

"Duo!"

"Hey, I'm Shinigami and I make the rules regarding this sort of thing."

Wufei nodded. "You know what, I'm in the mood for a good laugh. Click away Maxwell…that is when we have something to click with."

There wasn't ever much to do at the tiny apartment, so the four boys were just content to sit and wait until about fifteen minutes later, when Trowa came back with a new computer. He hauled the huge box into the room and placed it on the floor in front of the pilots. Quatre handed him a glass of lemonade for his efforts, which Trowa accepted gratefully. "Here it is. The most high tech and expensive model in the store, and I've got a method to make sure it won't be destroyed."

"What's that?"

"I used all of the money from Heero's fund to upgrade Wing Zero to buy it."

Heero bounced right off the couch. "What?!!!"

"Well, does your gundam really need anymore upgrades?"

"Of course it does!"

"Than install this computer on Wing Zero when we're done with it."

Heero balled his hands into fists but said nothing, after all, the computer might prove useful later, Trowa was right. "Okay, this should be no problem to install-"

"There is one problem though," Trowa informed them, "the installation of this thing looks kind of complicated."

All four of his friends stared at Trowa. Eventually Duo coughed and broke the awkward silence. "Trowa. I can't believe you said that. We're gundam PILOTS here, we've worked with more computer power than anyone else on the entire earth sphere! We can install one measly laptop!"

"Really?" Trowa opened the box and tossed the braided teen the instruction manual. "Have fun then, I'm not helping you. I feel like Chinese food, I'm going to go make some lemon chicken for lunch. Bye."

Quatre blinked as Trowa left. "He really is milking that lemon thing for all it's worth. Only because he's getting sadistic pleasure in watching you guys twitch. I'd stop giving him the opportunity or I'll never get to eat anything orange flavored again."

"Just shut up and take the monitor out of the box," Heero tossed a smaller package to Quatre.

The boys only expected the installation to take a few minutes, with they're immense computer skills it really should have taken less. But as time passed they realized they had run into a problem, everything they seemed to do just screwed the computer up more, and nothing seemed to work to put it together. After a half hour they consulted the instruction manual, just to find out that it was a manual for a different model than they had. As they broke over an hour working Wufei made a startling discovery.

"Hold on a second," Wufei picked up the monitor and turned it upside down.

"Wait, don't do that," Duo yelled at him, "you'll screw up the thing even more!"

"No I won't," Wufei glared at Duo sourly. "Guess what? The model number of this monitor matches that of the manual, but not of the computer."

"What?" Heero snatched the monitor from Wufei. "That can't be right…"

"Who packaged this thing?" Duo threw a big fistful of Styrofoam peanuts up in the air.

"I don't know Duo, someone incompetent."

"Nah, I wasn't talking about them, these Styrofoam things are awesome. I wonder if there's any bubble wrap-"

Wufei blinked. "Good god Maxwell, could you be any more easily amused?"

"Sure, you want me to try?"

"No! Spare me the injustice."

Heero exhaled loudly. "Look guys, there has to be a way to just install this thing anyway. Duo was right-"

"See? Bubble wrap is fun!"

"No, baka, you were right before. I've installed upgrades onto Wing Zero that make this laptop look like a pocket calculator."

Quatre grinned. "Or a portable TV."

Wufei shrugged. "Or a coffee maker for justice's sake. This laptop is an insult to our skills as pilots."

"Yeah Wu-man," Duo rolled his eyes. "It put itself together in the box with a specific intent to annoy us."

"Not that far from the truth," Trowa poked his head in the room suddenly. "Lunch is ready."

"What do you mean?" Heero tried his signature death glare on Trowa. It had no effect whatsoever. "You did this?"

"No," Trowa shrugged. "But I had a wonderful talk with the girl who I bought the laptop from. You'll never guess what she told me."

"I'm sure we could but why don't you save it?"

Trowa surprised everyone by grinning widely. "This particular young woman was a writer for fanfiction.net. She was delighted to hear of our exploration of the site and sent a lemon meringue pie for us to enjoy."

Heero dropped the set of cords he was holding. "Oh. That would explain a lot. We're never getting this thing together then, right?"

"All by yourselves? Of course not," Trowa laughed as he left for the kitchen.

***

******

Quatre Raberba Winner couldn't help but reach for a tissue and disrupt the shocked silence by blowing his nose. Sure, he probably could have done it a little bit quieter but the silence really was overdone anyway. Quatre blinked at the computer screen and clicked on the review box. "So…say what you want to say and lets be done with this."

Duo Maxwell glared at Quatre. The blond boy blinked, it was the first time he'd ever seen Duo glare at someone. "What would you tell someone that just killed you off?"

"Well I wasn't really paying attention to the fact that they killed us all off, I was trying to analyze the writing style. It might do you some good to do that too. Besides, it wasn't that bad."

"Wasn't that bad?! That was the saddest thing I've read in years! We were trapped, slowly dying in a burning building for crying out loud! Which some of us would be doing by the way if we weren't all emotionless drones."

Heero Yuy looked up abruptly. "What? I wasn't affected by that at all."

"Yeah right."

"Seriously."

Trowa blinked. "But that sequence of events was meant to make any emotionally weak person break down completely."

"Do I look like an emotionally weak person to you?"

"No, but it was personal on top of that. If you were going to die, would you confess all of that stuff to us? I'd like to know if some of it was accurate or not."

Heero took a turn glaring. "That information comes at a terrible price. You pay it with your life. Really want to know?"

"I'll pass."

"Good," Heero nodded. "Otherwise I would've made you tell me whether you're really afraid of clowns or not."

"That information comes at a terrible price if you ever repeat that phrase again."

Heero smirked. "See? Not that easy."

Chang Wufei wasn't going to be intimidated by a tear jerking fanfic. "Personally I think it was a load of complete injustice. No one knows enough about us to assume that type of thing, besides, with me they were completely off base."

"Oh come on," Quatre rolled his large aqua eyes, "you loved your wife and we all know it. You shouldn't be so afraid of having some emotion-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Wufei, it's only healthy to have feelings of-"

Wufei fingered his katana. "Seriously Quatre, drop the subject. Now."

"But I'm just trying to prove a point we could all learn from-"

Heero glanced to his room, more specifically his bed, his pillow to be meticulously exact. "Quatre, I'm going to have to side with Wufei on this one. That information is strictly classified until Wufei decides to reveal it."

"What do you mean, Yuy you baka, it's not like you know anything about it."

Heero cleared his throat awkwardly. "Of course not."

Trowa arched an eyebrow. "Convenient that the laptop Heero keeps all of his secret files on got destroyed. I think this one is becoming very public domain from now on."

"It isn't already? I destroyed the computer so you guys wouldn't destroy it. Think of it as a self detonation sort of thing."

Quatre cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "That's all fine and good but we have more important matters to think about. Now this story obviously affected us all, even if we won't admit it, and we owe this nice girl a review."

"How do you know it's a girl?"

"Over ninety percent of the people that publish on this site are female. It says so somewhere on it, I forget where."

Duo grinned. "Cool, we have lots of raving fangirls."

"If by raving you mean stark raving insane."

"Hey, you take what you can work with."

"Maxwell, in your case I'd suggest taking anything female. Human or not. That's my pilot's opinion by the way."

"Wufei, how many people do you see tacking your last name onto theirs?"

"More than you'd know."

"Yeah, got that right."

Quatre whistled. "Come on guys, we can burn each other's love lives later. Not that many of us have love lives," his voice grew distinctly softer, "or good taste anyway."

Trowa was very quick to cut into the conversation after this comment. "I want to tell her that the clown thing was completely inaccurate. There is absolutely no reason for me to be afraid of clowns."

"So you say," Heero smirked quickly and changed the subject. Quatre was recording the responses onto the review. "I'd like to comment on the absurdity of us being trapped in a burning building in the first place. Has there ever been any instance where any of us hasn't escaped from much worse?"

"Yeah," Duo added. "And tell whoever she is that I do not have any regrets from my childhood. And that I never had a pet bunny named Fluffy."

"Really?" Quatre blinked. "I thought you told me about that once."

"Your ears are imaginative, Quat. Best teach them not to be, okay?"

Quatre smiled slyly. "Whatever you say," he let the subject drop and typed in all of this info to the authoress. "Wufei? Anything you want to add?"

"That story was full of injustice."

"Dually noted. Anyone else?"

"I am _not _afraid of clowns."

"Okay then," Quatre clicked a button and the review was sent under the name 'pilots'. He clicked back to the Gundam Wing homepage. "I've never figured out what that name means. Oh well, pick another subject boys."

"Something less depressing," Duo opted with a face.

"Aren't you the one who 'makes the rules' regarding that sort of thing?"

"Oh shut up. Let's try something completely different," Duo suggested. "I think it's called AU. Alternate Universe or something, sounds interesting to me."

Quatre blinked. "I don't think we want to try that one."

Heero stole the mouse from the blond boy irritably. "This site is _still _a security risk. So we explore it all. I think it's fun."

"Only because you're winning all the bets."

"Maybe so. But it's still fun."

Trowa stood up. "I feel like some ice cream. Anybody want some lemon sherbet?"

"It's getting old, Trowa."

"Not if certain people still squirm every time they hear it. Heero isn't having fun in every aspect. I'll be back with the ice cream."

***

******

"What injustice," Chang Wufei muttered to his companions. These were the only words he could think of in response to the story he'd just read. "For one, I'd like to point out that this pathetic excuse for a story has no command of the English language at all. English isn't even my first language and I can see that."

Quatre sighed. "Yeah, I've got to admit, they could have hit the spell check button. But oh well, what did you think of it?"

"Disgusting."

"Wufei, sorry but on this one your opinion doesn't count. Just because they turned you into a girl."

"Halfway through the story, how is that physically possible-"

Duo Maxwell gave Wufei a slap on the back. "Oh shut up, Wuffles, that's not the point. Personally I thought that basing our story on a fairytale was creative…but just…creepy beyond human description."

Heero Yuy nodded. "I am NOT an elf. I just wanted to clarify that."

Duo decided to chime in with some more of his opinion. "And what the hell kind of a name is Aragorn? Why is Heero a blond, and suspiciously described to look like Zechs? But on the other hand, the word 'dwarf' is a very accurate way to describe Wufei-"

"You know Maxwell, I am armed over here. One last warning, okay?"

"Fine," Duo made a face. "Yeash, you don't have to be so violent-"

Quatre cleared his throat. "Are we going to review?"

"Nope, skip this one. Although I think we might want to rent the movie Lord of the Rings just for a few laughs."

Wufei sighed. The Chinese teen had taken to sharpening his katana while reading at the same time. "This is so pointless. Besides, we aren't even in alternate universe anymore, I think we're in parodies."

"No, the AU section is usually full of parodies. That's okay though, we've got about a hundred pages to go, should be no problem," Quatre looked around the room. "Hey, where's Trowa?"

"I think he said he was going to go raid the fridge."

Heero stiffened. "Not more lemons-"

Quatre Winner was famous for having more humanity than all of the other pilots combined. He actually felt really sorry for Heero and decided to go find Trowa to tell him to lay off the joke a bit. "I'll go find them. I'm really in the mood for something orange flavored. Any takers?"

"No."

"Fine then, suit yourself," Quatre left the room, strolled over to the kitchen, and sure enough, found Trowa in front of an open fridge. "What'cha doing?"

"Trying to find something with lemons in it, I think I'm running out of material here," Trowa tossed out a gallon of milk, some ketchup, and some whipped cream from the fridge and continued his search. 

Despite himself Quatre grinned. "You really think it's worth it to put Heero in a mental hospital sooner than he'd normally go?"

"Oh he'll be there in a few years either way. Besides, it's really not that big a deal."

"We're all a little irrational about some things."

"Sure," Trowa pulled out a big jar of Mexican salsa and stared at it. "When's the expiration date on this thing?"

"Um, I think I bought that stuff last year."

"Oh…no problem, it'll be useful in the future," Trowa placed the salsa back in the fridge. "You do the groceries most of the time, what do we have to work with?"

Quatre sighed. "You really like this joke, huh?"

"No one likes a kill joy Quatre."

"Who's joy would I be killing? Yours? It really is kind of cruel-…oh never mind. I made a mental list since this thing started, just in case. We've got lemon water ice, lemon juice extract and actual lemons. If I were you and I was looking for a real tactical advantage, I'd go with the extract. The element of surprise is always useful."

Trowa blinked at his friend's bluntness. He disappeared in the fridge for a moment and came back with a little bottle of pure lemon juice. "Hmm…you should come over to the dark side more often, Quatre. It's very useful indeed when you do."

"What are you going to plant it in?"

"Something creative, I'll think of it in a minute."

Quatre turned to go. "I can't lie to the others, they'll be wondering what you were doing."

"You don't have to lie, just dodge the truth a bit."

"Trowa?"

"What?"

"I'm going to take a wild guess on something. You publish on fanfiction.net too, don't you?"

"Well," Trowa couldn't help but smile a very small amount, something that was a rarity for him. "Not yet. But I certainly knew of it's existence."

"What? How?"

"You showed it to me once. Your memory really is lacking these days."

Quatre nodded, grinning widely. "And I'm assuming after this you're going to publish something?"

"Of course. It's going to be about our little adventure here. I think I'll call it _The Reaction_," Trowa pocketed the lemon juice extract and left the room.

Quatre blinked, shrugged, and couldn't think of anything to do except follow him.

The pilots had moved onto another AU fic. Quatre's eyes caught the title and he winced. "Oh, I wouldn't read that one if I were you, I think it's just a little too untamed-"

Duo threw his arms into the air in obvious exasperation. "Now you inform us! That was…just…just…"

Heero rolled his eyes. "There are no words to describe the randomness. One minute we were singing with some boy band and the next, we were on the moon. Quatre, are you sure this site isn't run out of a mental institution somewhere?"

Wufei snorted. "Are you asking so you can call ahead and reserve a room?"

"Yeah, a room for you."

"I think I should have seen that coming."

"Damn right."

Quatre blinked at the two of them. "Well you certainly did pick the worst representation of AU, some of the stories are actually quite interesting."

Heero shook his head. "You are not talking your way out of this one anytime soon. I think we need to get away from this computer. We've been sitting here like idiots for too long."

Quatre blinked several more times, surprised at the sheer sense this suggestion made. "Absolutely, let's go get something to eat, or maybe a movie-"

"Sure…right."

Trowa folded his arms. "No hunting anyone down, no matter how much you want to Heero."

"I'm not going to hunt anyone, I'm just going to have a chat…a small chat, really…with a few of the authors."

Wufei nodded. "Well if it will get us out of this house, by all means, let's go," he sheathed his katana and walked out the door.

Trowa followed, leaving Heero, Duo, and Quatre in the room to stare at each other. Eventually Duo shrugged. "Seeing Heero getting even with some of the authors sounds like fun, I'm there."

Heero looked away from Quatre. "Don't look at me like I have no compassion whatsoever. Well, wait a sec, I don't, so then why am I-…ugh, never mind. I'm not going to hurt anyone in any way. Physically at least. Really…"

"Fine then," Quatre turned off the computer and decided to take a brief vacation on the dark side. "It'd had better be a good show."

***

***

Heero Yuy was in such incredulous disbelief at the sight in front of him that he was at a loss of words, and it was possible the mute feeling was going to last the rest of his life from that moment on. Duo couldn't stop laughing, he coughed out what all of the pilots were thinking as soon as he could get enough air to say so. "Where in all…hell…did we g-get…_that _thing???!"

Quatre rolled his eyes. Sure, it wasn't the ideal form of transportation, but what spelled inconspicuous better than this choice of vehicle? "If you really want we can go rent another car, this would have been much easier however if one of us owned a car at all."

"Out of all the rentals in the parking lot," Wufei huffed, "you, in your right mind too for justice's sake, you picked this weak…miserable…"

Trowa blinked and shrugged, opening the driver's side door to get into the car. "What? I don't see anything wrong with it, it's just a minivan."

Wufei clapped his hands over his ears. "Don't say it!"

Trowa smiled ever so slightly. "I especially like Quatre's color of choice, lemon yellow."

Quatre returned the very small bit of emotion on Trowa's part. "It was the only one in the lot that color."

"This is going to be a fun trip."

"I know."

"Hey, Heero, you alive there, buddy?"

Heero was just staring blankly at the car. Duo laughed a little more but then stopped himself.

"Aww, come on, sure they're sense of humor is warped beyond sane human recognition, but is that really a reason to go into a serious emotional breakdown?"

Heero just got out his little piece of notebook paper and got into the back of the van, shivering violently as he did so. He muttered one word: "…disgusting…"

"Oh relax," Duo hopped in the car after him. Quatre opted for shotgun and Wufei stretched out in the very back seat, looking like he was going to fall asleep, which he confirmably was fifteen minutes into the trip. Trowa turned on the car and put the radio on.

"All right," the emerald eyed boy checked the rear view mirror as he was backing out. "What other kind of car would have held all of us anyway? Heero, this is your road trip, where's the first stop?"

"We're going into the city."

"What city?"

"New York City. To talk to some of these authors."

Duo sent his friend a critical look. "And how do you know that some of the authors live in NY?"

"Umm…"

Quatre sent Heero a very mature and adult like frown from the rear view mirror. "Heero, did you do extensive internet searches on these people?"

"Maybe…"

"That was very rude of you."

"If you insist."

Trowa pulled out of the apartment complex and onto the suburban street. The pilots were going on a road trip to have a little chat with some of the authors and authoresses on fanfiction.net. They had decided to do this for two reasons: first, no matter how you put it sitting in the house all day in front of a computer was insanely boring. The boys were very interested in getting out and about a little bit. Secondly, none of them could possibly fathom the motives of these people who were writing incredibly strange stories about them. So they were just curious, no one really wanted to hurt the authors. Physically at least…

So they got on the highway and did for once what most normal teenage boys would do on road trips, zone out listening to the radio. It wasn't long though, before someone got tired of the silence and decided to start up the conversation again.

"So, Heero, read off some of the names on that list."

Heero perked up for a second. "That information is classified." 

"Well how are we supposed to find them if we don't know who they are?" Duo intoned.

"How are we supposed to find them at all? New York is a big place, if any of you bakas have forgotten," Wufei yawned from the back seat. "It's not like these authors are just going to be walking down the street."

"Oh you'd be surprised," Trowa commented idly from the driver's seat.

"What do you mean?"

"I think we'll run into plenty of authors."

"Trowa, if I didn't know better I'd think you were involved in this whole plot against us."

Duo turned a loud laugh into a cough at Heero's glare. "Sorry, buddy, but that's a little bit paranoid. 'Plot against us'? Come on, who's plotting?"

"With dangerous minds you can never tell."

Quatre rolled his eyes tiredly. "How many times do I have to tell you that these aren't exactly dangerous minds we're dealing with? Most are just giddy teenage girls, who more often than not have a crush on one or more of us."

"That in itself is scary, they're probably all amateur stalkers."

"You can be an amateur stalker?"

"If you try hard enough…why not?"

"As opposed to being a professional stalker, like us?"

Heero blinked. "Not like us at all, we're professional assassins, there's a big difference."

"Some of us more professional than others," Wufei added from the back. "This car is unjust, very uncomfortable indeed."

"It was the best I could do for the plan-…I mean with our budget of course."

Duo grinned and leaned his seat back a little to annoy Wufei. "Quatre, don't tell me, Trowa's actually recruited you?"

"I have nothing to recruit people for."

"Oh, I see. Just like you have no name, huh?"

"I thought I had gained a name."

"Yeah, just like you've gained a master plan regarding all of this," Duo arched a very sly eyebrow. "I know a lemon when I smell one. I think I'm beginning to share in some of Heero's paranoia."

"See? I knew it was only healthy."

"Speaking of lemons…"

Trowa snapped his attention from the road for just a split second. "We won't have to worry about them, we're away from the house, and unless we stop to get something to eat I can't serve any more lemons."

"Really? You didn't bring any lemons along for the trip?"

"Of course not…"

"Look," Wufei's voice dripped with distaste. "Trowa's a good liar."

"Now really," Quatre chided sternly, "Trowa isn't interested in taking advantage of any of us and you know it. So stop giving him crap over it."

"Whatever Quat," Duo shrugged. "You always take his side anyway."

"You don't know the half of it…"

The pilots drove on in purposeful silence.

******

Chapter Eight goes here…..no one sent me it, so I dunno where to get a copy….sorry peeps….

******

***

"So why exactly do you girls, and guys, write fanfiction?"

Trowa Barton had opened the conversation very efficiently indeed. It was a brilliantly sunny afternoon in Central Park and fanfiction.net authors had just kept pouring in from left and right, up and down, side to side and any other direction imaginable. There was a nice picnic blanket on the ground and all sorts of wonderful foods for people to enjoy. One girl thrust a bag of some unidentified substance at Duo. "This is called Pocky, it's great, try some!"

Duo managed a bit of a strained grin. He would have gladly tried some, if he hadn't been given about ten other strange and supposedly edible things to try. "Um, thanks! What's your name again?"

"Silver Raye Adams," she smiled. 

"Ah, okay," Duo turned to Trowa, who was watching the crowd of authors discuss the answer to his question. "Explain exactly what we're doing here again. I feel like I'm addressing a fan club or something."

"You are, but it's okay, we just need to get some information from them."

"If they don't kill us first."

Trowa frowned. "I thought I told you that they were harmless. Do they _really _look that dangerous?"

Duo grinned. "Ask Heero."

Heero was busy being interviewed by a gaggle of girls over a little ways beyond Duo and Trowa. A girl named Dark Crystal put her arm around his shoulder. "Don't worry, we're not really going to hurt you. Physically at least."

"Get off me."

She blinked and put some distance between them. "Sheesh, excuse me for feeling a little sorry for you. You won't find much sympathy in this group."

All of the sudden a girl came flying in through the group, ran up to Heero and gave him a huge hug, knocking him over onto the blanket and yelling "LOOK, I GOT ONE! I got a gundam pilot! And he's all mine! Stay back, I called Heero first!"

The girls all blinked incredulously as Heero choked and tried to get himself out of the girl's grip with out seriously hurting her. He eventually just settled to push her away as hard as he possibly could. "Who the hell are you?!"

"Ruwi Demon, very nice to meet you too," she smiled and held out her hand.

Wufei walked over and batted the outstretched hand away with his sword hilt. "The feeling isn't mutual. What in the name of all injustice did you think you were doing?"

"Calling him. There's gonna be a small war over Duo when everyone else eventually gets here. You, Wufei, I'm not so sure about."

Wufei rolled his onyx eyes. "Let's just go let Barton have his fun and get out of here."

"Aw," another girl came up to Wufei. "You don't even want some general tso chicken?"

The Chinese warrior blinked. "Is that the real Chinese version or the cheesy Americanized stuff?"

"One hundred percent authentic," Lucia Iris Legaia Tanaka assured him. 

"Oh. I'll try some then."

Quatre sighed. "I never thought I'd see the day when Wufei was persuaded by food."

The five more or less than slightly frazzled pilots gathered around Trowa and faced the group of girls as they came to a mutual decision regarding the question. Tori Yuki Ichimura stood up and decided to go first. "Well, there are quite a few reasons. I'll start just because mine's rather simple really. You boys are just plain entertaining. So cute, and yet so mentally unbalanced. You gotta love that. And besides, it makes for such good doujinshi!"

Heero glared. "Which is?"

"Um…that's not going to help our conversation right now. I'll shock you boys again later. Right now, just listen to the rest of us, kay?"

Trowa nodded. "Go ahead."

Emily Hato cleared her throat. "Well…why do we write? Because it brings a little excitement into our lives. I work, go to school and hang out with my friends. Honestly, as much fun as that may seem to some people I've always wanted to go on an adventure, to save the world, to make a bigger difference than one extra smile. I've always craved an adventure and by writing you can almost have it. Perhaps it's also the fact that that you boys are very easy to relate to. We can imagine you in our world and maybe for a moment by writing a story about you we can catch some of the excitement. By writing about a character you can add-"

"Wait a minute," Trowa cut her off. "Characters? You're talking like we're something out of a story book?"

"Oh…" she blinked. "Um…well of course I didn't mean it that way. It opens the door to another reality for us. We can pilot huge machines and save the world on a normal basis. You boys live in a whole other world. That's the way I meant it."

Trowa and Duo exchanged a look. Trowa obviously had an idea that no one else did. He nodded once again to the girls. "Continue."

A girl named Becki held something out to the guys. "Here, I brought lemon loly-pops. You guys are just fun to write about, that's all."

Trowa took the lemon extract out of his pocket. "Here, you can go plant this in some food if you want."

"Cool, gladly."

The Lady Tiger stood up. "Your story just ended so abruptly. We felt like we had to continue it somehow. And besides, there's another definite reason that you might or might not understand. You guys are just SO damn fine it's unbelievable."

"I second that opinion," Ryoko-onee grinned. "You guys are soooo hot. Some more than others though."

Quatre laughed. "Like who?"

Ryoko-onee blinked. "Duo."

"Definitely Duo," Mich Maxwell nodded. 

"I love a man in black."

"We love you all so much, but Shinigami really is incredible. The braid is just so cute!"

"Wufei is kind of hot too."

"Oh, come on, we all know Heero's the hottest."

"Is not."

"Is too! Trowa's great too!"

Quatre grinned. "No one in my defense?"

"Aw, Quatre, we love you too, just not in a 'holding female attention' way."

"You're more of a leader, although you do look very nice in a suit."

"Okay," Trowa shouted unusually loudly over this conversation. He was the only one that would speak, the other boys were caught in dumbfounded silence, with only Duo looking really happy. "I think this argument should be over before someone starts a conflict that could seriously damage our 'mentally unbalanced' emotional systems. You ladies have to realize what a conversation like that would lead some of us," he cleared his throat, "to believe. Continue with the answer to my question, please."

"Well since you're so polite about it," Iruka-Yuywell smiled. "I'm actually inspired by other people's work. I had to start writing some of my own. 

"Yeah," Chiren Decimal stated. "It's also a way of escaping the real world."

"We want to get into the action. It would be so much fun to help you guys save the world," Iniora Nackatori added. "You know, help kick some evil along side such nice guys."

"Because you're all so cute, and it's about time you had some new experiences besides being anti social and stuff," Minerva Blue added. 

"You guys should really be open to the idea of female pilots. It's kind of sexist in the show-…I mean your story," the girl named Pruningshears called from the back.

Silver Raye Adams agreed. "We were all devastated when the series ended. We couldn't let it stop there, so we started writing fanfiction."

There was silence.

Quatre coughed. "There it is again. This is starting to freak me out. Series?"

"Yeah, what's with the fact that they know us so well at all?"

"What series could they be talking about?" Wufei questioned Trowa.

Trowa Barton surprised everyone by smiling, folding his arms and looking like he had just accomplished a very important mission. "It took everyone long enough. There is a problem with this nice fan club of ours. There is no way they could know this much about us. We've never seen any of them in our lives. There has to be something else helping them out. I've suspected this for a while because there are other indicators of our apparent fame. There's definitely an element we don't know of."

"A series?"

"I think so."

"About us?"

"Quite possibly," Trowa turned to the girls. "Do you know?"

"Yeah," Tori's face went blank. "Of course there's a series. You didn't know that?"

"No."

"Oh man…"

***

******

***

Duo Maxwell was at a loss for words again. It was really getting extremely annoying, normally if he couldn't think of anything intelligent to say he'd just blurt something out. After all, that was always better than saying nothing at all, right? He'd even lost count of how many times this had happened to him in light of recent events. Quatre Winner decided to comment instead. "What kind of a series are we talking about here?"

The girl named Tori seemed confused too. "You guys have to know _something _about the series. It's a TV show, about you."

"Impossible," Heero Yuy stated flatly. "We keep all information on us extremely well hidden. There could never be a breach that big."

"Yeah," Duo found his voice finally, "that's absolutely crazy. How could you even imagine something like that?"

"Because," a girl named Katriel exclaimed. "It's true! This is unbelievable…" 

Trowa Barton had his arms folded and a particularly severe emotionless look on his face, if having no emotion could seem severe. "Back when Quatre first showed me the site called fanfiction.net I knew that there had to be something like this, but I never thought of a TV show. In fact it's probably the last thing I would have concluded to. Who's responsible?"

"For what?"

"This TV show of course. And what it's about? And how much does it have to do with us?"

"Um, everything," Silver Raye Adams shrugged. "You boys are the five main characters. It's about the big war you guys fought…and…I dunno, some nice Japanese people?"

"I could tell you exactly who it is," Tori shrugged. "But what difference would that make anyway?"

"Yeah," a girl named Silvahra seconded. "If you really want to know about the series let's just go to Blockbuster and rent it."

"We need a TV to do that," Iruka-Yuywell folded her arms. "Not to mention a car to get there."

Trowa blinked. "Can't most of you drive? Someone's got to have a car, you all use the same website, ask someone."

"Seeing this 'series' is crucial to us pilots, we have to see if there are security issues regarding it," Heero tried to stress. "Also if it really exists."

"You don't believe us?"

Heero half coughed. "Um, no…"

"Oh," Metal-Hybrid grinned, "then we'll just have to prove it."

"Good," Trowa nodded. "And don't forget to buy some lemon sherbet while you're out."

***

Duo was stuck in the center of a large group of girls with very scary looks on their faces. A girl named Mich Maxwell was in the center of the group. "Okay, ladies, we're only going to do this once, and it has to be _fair._ No complaining if you lose."

"Lose?" Duo echoed. "Lose what?"

"You of course," Ruwi Demon grinned happily. "We're going to settle it once and for all, who has dibs on you."

"The wonderfully fine Duo Maxwell."

"And we're playing for keeps here, girls, no dividing him up on different days. Winner takes and keeps all."

Duo blinked, suddenly getting a very uncomfortable feeling. "Dibs on me how exactly?"

Wild Shinigami patted him on the head. "Why who gets to keep you of course, you know, lock you in a closet, keep you as a boyfriend, and comb out that beautiful hair of yours. For starters at least."

"It's really very simple," Iniora Nackatori told the now visibly disturbed braided teen. "There's a lot of us, and only five of you pilots, you of course being the most popular. So we have to have a contest."

Duo tried to keep his cool, although he'd been in many scary situations before this was getting terrifying, and who knew what they would do if he let it show? He put on his best smile and stood up. "Okay, you girls can have this contest, but I'm going to be over there talking to Quatre-"

LB put her hands on his shoulders. "Oh no you don't. You are staying right here. You can't escape us Duo."

"I can't?"

"Oh no, you can't. Sorry."

"I know," Minerva Blue clapped her hands. "Duo can be the judge! He has a perfectly unbiased opinion of us!"

"Yeah," Chang Wufei wandered over. "He thinks that you're all equally insane."

"Wufei! Help, get me outta here man!" Duo waved frantically.

Wufei cocked his head to one side and peered intently at the situation Duo was in. "Well, Maxwell…I could, but then there were all those jokes you've played on me for so long. I think I'm going to return the favor."

"But Wufei, this is inhuman!"

Wufei smiled. "You're right, I'd better go get some popcorn or something. Don't start without me," he wandered over in the direction of the food.

Duo cursed, but then looked at the girls surrounding him and gulped very audibly. "Exactly what kind of contest are you girls going to be having?"

"Wow, I dunno. Any ideas?"

Shinigamisangel shrugged. "How about if we all just hug him and the one he picks gets him."

"Nah, that's too easy."

Minerva suddenly had an idea. "Hey Duo, do you have a camera?"

"Um, yeah…how'd you know?"

"It's in your back pocket."

"Which loosely translates to that she was probably looking at your-"

"Okay," Duo interrupted very hastily, better for them not to admit to certain things. Duo was really starting to seriously fear for his safety. "Here, take the camera."

"Okay, here's the deal, we each take some sort of photo of the guys' reaction to the series when we get it. I mean facial expressions here people, best and funniest photo wins. 'Kay?"

"Oh, cool!"

"Sounds good."

"Okay, that's cool."

"Fine."

"I get the camera first!"

"Ha, I brought my own!"

To make Duo personal hell worse, Wufei came back, not only with a big bowl of popcorn but also with Heero in tow. The perfect soldier took one look at the situation and started laughing uncontrollably. Duo frowned. "How come everyone gets such pleasure in watching me suffer?"

"That's because we love you," Tori gave him another pat on the head. 

Heero took a deep breath to stop laughing. "Duo, nothing personal, really…but this is worth any security risk in the world."

Ruwi Demon put her arm around Heero's shoulder. "New rule, girls. Anyone who wants to can get a photo and claim Heero as a prize instead of Duo."

Duo grinned as the smile evaporated off of Duo's face. "Huh? Wait, that can't be allowed-"

"Oh yeah it can! Welcome to hell, Heero! And you are definitely staying for my duration."

***

End note: hmm…review with your opinion…good and bad both accepted but bad scoffed at, see my info…I'm not expecting this to stay up for very long…if it does I might or might not update…


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